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Creighton will struggle to defend Drew Timme and Gonzaga Basketball

By Jacob Stevenson

Feb 8, 2021; Provo, Utah, USA; Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Drew Timme (2) celebrates with his teammates after their win against the Brigham Young Cougars at Marriott Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 8, 2021; Provo, Utah, USA; Gonzaga Bulldogs forward Drew Timme (2) celebrates with his teammates after their win against the Brigham Young Cougars at Marriott Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports /
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Gonzaga Basketball has have won their first two NCAA tournament games (98-55) against Norfolk State and (87-71 against Oklahoma. The Sooners got off to a quick start and even got out to a 12-4 lead.

But Drew Timme was too much to handle, he had a career-high 30 points and grabbed 13 rebounds on 9-12 shooting and 12-14 from the line. Corey Kispert was effective as usual from distance going 4-8 from three. But another huge reason why Gonzaga won this game was going 23-26 from the free-throw line and outshot their opponents from the line 26-12.

Now the Zags will face a Creighton team that defeated UCSB (63-62) and just beat OHIO (72-58). Against Ohio, Creighton was able to put a couple of different athletic defenders on Jason Preston that bothered him and limited him to 1-10 from the field. The Bluejays starters contributed for 68 of their 72 points with Marcus Zegarowski leading the team with 20 points and were 4-7 from three.

A huge key for Gonzaga is gonna be how they defend the pick and roll. Against Oklahoma Lon Kruger tried to get Austin Reaves matched up against Timme when they would switch on screens. Gonzaga played a couple of different coverages that game and it’s gonna be interesting to see how they guard Zegarowski and Creighton.

Creighton is a team that plays four guards around a big and wants to shoot a lot of three’s ranking 33rd in the country in percentage shots that are threes. When they shoot above 42 percent from three they are 10-1 on the year. Against a great team like Gonzaga, Creighton is gonna need to shoot well from deep.

You can expect Timme to have a big game, Christian Bishop at 6’7 will be Timme’s primary defender and with the height advantage and Bishop not being the best post defender you can expect Creighton to double him regardless Timme should have a big game.

Next. Creighton keys to upset Gonzaga. dark

Creighton is a very good team but to beat Gonzaga they are gonna have to play very well and the Zags are probably going to have to play poorly. With that being said I think the Zags pull it out.